


Worldbuilding of The Gifted and Tainted

by RoyalB



Category: The world of the Gifted and Tainted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28715250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoyalB/pseuds/RoyalB
Summary: WorldbuildingCharacter sheetsand Spoilers Duh...





	Worldbuilding of The Gifted and Tainted

The Holy Union; it stretches from the far west of former Spain to the northern tip of Norway, to the east of Belarus and to the south of Italy.   
Capital Biggest city: Rome 800,000 inhabitants.   
Religion: The Faith  
Inhabitants: 80 to 90 million   
The holy Father, the head of the church and state, has reunited all monotheistic splitter religions, in Europe, by force and destroyed or forcefully converted other believing religions.  
It is a highly militaristic organization, almost everybody has served in a military branch at a time.   
Whilst the from the outside one would see a militaristic and expansionistic giant nation, a look from the inside unearths a surprisingly inclusive society. The worth of a being is determined by the power of will, body and soul. Talents and strengths are searched for, are respected and are cultivated.   
This society does not care for names, titles and birthrights, everybody is treated equal to the moment one proves to be better.  
The Union is known for its acceptance of the gift. While other nations have hunted and are hunting and slaughtering these so-called witches and wizards, the Faith has granted them, at first, exile. This friendliness towards the gifted developed into a strong allegiance.  
Soon after the Faith had bounded their believes with what the new reality gave them, they started to expand, as thousands of gifted flew from all over Europe towards the small state of the Vatican. Soon the room of the city wasn’t enough and the first expansion war against the adjacent city states of the fallen roman empire started. Since the then called Vatican had a vast majority in Gifted and in other armies, gifted weren’t allowed to join, they swiftly overtook the whole of Italy. This expansion has endured fifty years, and the whole continent was now under the influence of the Faith.   
Now, since the habitat and safety were secured, the Faith turned inward, building schools, giving great minds room to grow and bodies the possibility to get stronger. As before, Gifted feared for their lives, now they are searched for and held high in the society. Gifted are encouraged to visit a special school and learn. At first, how to use their gifts properly and not be a danger to their environment. But also, the common knowledge, languages of the empire, trade, math, reading and writing, as well as schooling in religion and strategizing, planning and combat.   
If a Gifted, in school, has problems paying fees, depts or anything else, the state is there to help. As an exchange, they can either join service in the military for a moderate amount of time or be placed in reserve, in case of invasion.   
Most choose the former and live through a military career, which is aided by their powers. 

Different kinds of gifts:  
Ice, water needs water, can’t be used without. Can’t create water.  
Fire, Lightning needs a power source, it can be a fire, the sun. If there is none, creation of fire/ Lightning is minimal, not usable for combat.  
Plant gifts, can enchant plant live, without a plant/seed can’t be used. Can’t create plant live out of nothing. Ability to accelerate plant growth and control, where it grows, it is remarkably fast.

Telekinesis can universally be used, even if the person has no gift, needs training and talent.

Since the powers, that are used by most gifted are more aligned with supportive fire and long-range attacks, defense and close-range security are of a paramount. This is the reason most trained and skilled Gifted have developed uses of weapons in combination of their respective gift, to make them even deadlier in a close-range brawl.

Skills and special kinds of uses of a gift can be learned and developed by new gifted. Specialties in a gift are most often passed on by the older generations. That way, families with the same gift have often strongly differenced uses of this respective gift.

Some gifts are outlawed, these associated with the devil, as healing, as it needs healthy flesh and transforms it into dead, or injured flesh, to heal or revive a dead, or heal an injured person.   
It is an extremely powerful gift, as it can be used offensive, after a battle, fallen can be revived, as a trade for, for example prisoners, or low lives. Minor wounds can be healed by little to no sacrifice, but larger injuries, or near to death, to death, must be healed with larger sacrifices.   
As well is drain, freezing heart, mind cloud and every usage of a gift, that inflicts more pain, than others, with the same effect.

The Khanate:  
Is a group at the head of the more nomadic tribes in the east. Their territory stretches from the west corners of the Union’s borders to the coast of china in the east, from the most north point in Russia to territories in India.   
The latest victories over other races include: The Turkman empire, concluding into a massive gain of land in that area.   
Capital and Biggest City: on average 1.8 Million  
Inhabitants: Around 180 Million People  
Religions: Tengrism, Shamanism, Buddhism, Nestorian, old Christianity (remnants of rejectors of the new Faith), Islam  
As descendants of the great warrior race of the Mongolian tribes, they value honor in fight and life the highest. It is a strict and honor bound society.   
The highest honor is to serve the mighty Khan. He is the political and spiritual leader of the whole empire and is known for leading his armies himself into battle.   
He tolerates all religions, if their leader bends his knee and sees him as the offspring of the gods on earth. Since most of these religions don’t have leaders, that can bend the knee, he is mostly accepted as a half god.   
In opposite to the Union, the Gifted, or in their empire named, the tainted, are hunted and to be destroyed.   
Official sources say, that the tainted are send by the underworld and are here to spread its taint and chaos, to dethrone the great Khan and destroy the Khanate.   
That the biggest enemy of the Khan uses the tainted for war against them does not help.  
Pursuit of the Tainted:  
The detection of a Tainted is easy. They have since birth a mark, that develops over time. For knowledgeable readers, it can describe the kind of gift they have received. As well as the strength it will develop. So, every newborn is, under threat of death, commanded to be searched for one of these signs. Some look just like birthmarks, but some look, instantly after birth, like a blaze, a plant, ice, a drop of water or other.  
In pursuit of the tainted, the so called Salvators, have learned, that there is a relation of where and what kind of gift a person has. If he or she was born in the north, the cold, with a soft and light toned skin, these people often have ice or water related powers. A person born in the thick rainforests of china or India, with a darker toned skin, most likely developed plant-based powers. And so, people of the hot and dry regions of the Arabic-half-island developed fire, or heat-based powers.

Liss Iceborn  
Was born to: Unknown  
Was born in Rørvik, small region in Norway  
Stature: 1.71 m, healthy thin, moderately strong, inverted triangle, faster, not stronger, tactician and skilled, no brute force  
Age: 22  
Hair: white, shoulder short, thin and healthy, wavy/curly, side braids into undercut at the left side (rebel hairstyle), right side normal, into a short ponytail.   
Loyalty: The Union  
Religion: Undecided/Unknown, has ties to the old religion in Norway  
Gift:   
\- Has a strong connection to the cold. Doesn’t get cold easily.   
\- When fighting, she frequently produces a frost aura, slowing / irritating enemies, can get really cold, (up do death upon entering)  
\- Frost poison, enhancement of her sword, only needs one cut, to kill. Leaves a shard of ice inside the victim’s blood circulation and punctures veins from the inside, until it reaches the heart and stops it almost instantly. The cold can spread inside a body and make the veins look blue as ice. Bodies are almost instantly ice cold, not as normal bodies, which remain normally warm for a longer period.   
\- Dark-Ice-Spears, can use water from any imaginary source, to form ice-spears, which are stronger than normal ice, because of her gift -hence the name dark-ice-, can vary in size.  
\- Barrage, can manipulate the spears, flinging them with force into enemies  
\- Water drain, can drain plants, ground, fruits, etc. of water  
\- Control of water, Ice and steam, can control the phases of water  
Other trades:  
\- Mongolian riding  
\- sword fighting  
\- strategizing  
-> experienced in all three above  
\- talking  
\- can write  
\- can read  
\- can speak multiple languages, and learns them quickly  
\- lead with passion  
\- avoids death of companions/soldiers of the union as much as possible  
\- has no problem with taking lives of enemies  
\- when my time comes, it comes mentality  
\- special hatred towards Salvators  
\- extensive knowledge of the Khanate, at least, what Owen (…) has told her  
Background  
Lived in a small kingdom in Norway, as a low servant/slave, when she was still a kid. When The Union freed the kingdom from the heretics and nonbelievers and “united” with the kingdom, she was in the thrown room, and plaid a consequential role in the death of the king.

Liss’ background, retold:  
(her perspective) I was born in the then Kingdom of Rørvik. Not short after my birth, my parents discarded me and left me to die in the snow, why I don’t know. I was found by an old royal maid, who, I know of tales, feed me and introduced me into the royal service. She had little, but with the things, she had, she provided for me, for a time. She told stories of the noble king and the good deeds he had done to protect the kingdom. How I should be proud to serve him and do everything in my power to please him. Whatever it meant. The old lady died after eleventh winter, I once again was homeless, this time, I remember. Since I had experience with the royal customs, I soon was put into service of the king. One contradiction and I was deemed unworthy to serve as a free human under the king’s boot and got sentenced to a life as an unfree, a worthless piece of human meet, there was no price for me, the person, who wanted me could have taken me. The worst jobs were, of cause, mine. After my first breakdown, I realized, that I had powers, with eyes filled with iced up tears and the place I cried myself to sleep icy as well, this was the start of many sleepless nights. The king feared the tainted, as many nobles did, he feared as well, that the tainted had come, to usurp him. To throw him of his thrown, killing him in the process. I knew that, if I didn’t hide my true form from him, I’d be dead in moments. Though, the teachings of the old maid made me to be still loyal, fearing, mostly not for my life, but being separated from the only thing reminding me of my adoptive mother. So, I tried to serve, which got more and more difficult, since I grew, and occasions of almost being detected piled up. I killed, for my secret not to be unveiled. I killed the first person, who tried to rape me with twelfth. I froze his throat into an ice-block, while he tried to rip my clothes of me. He choked to death in seconds. I left him lying on the floor. To my luck rats ate much of his face in no time, so it was suspected, that he died a day or two earlier, than he did, of natural causes.   
Still, occasions of almost detection weren’t rare, but resulted in their deaths.  
(From the view of the then General Gleaves and General’s Adjutant Berg)  
After small skirmishes in the small kingdom of Rørvik, the capital and only city, Rørvik, they stood before the gates. It was only one of many cities, they were here to conquer. And it wasn’t the largest as well. The giant Union’s army stood in front of the gates and expected the king to surrender. There was no way, he could even endure a siege of the gifted and other soldiers for even a day. The walls would break in a few hours and then the soldiers would follow soon after. But to everyone’s surprise, he didn’t surrender, he called out a war of no surrender and mercy. “To the death!” he screamed to the top of his lungs, from the top of his highest tower Gleaves remembers.  
His soldiers were brave and tenacious, but the greater numbers and skill of our forces just sliced it’s way through the city.  
Gleaves and Berg, in full armor stormed the tower. The soldiers up there were of not much resistance. They were powerless against the force throwing itself against them.   
The two breached the throne room. The guards inside were swiftly disarmed and pacified.   
The king sat in his thrown, with a hand on his sword, unsheathed, resting on the ground, the other clenching with his thin old fingers on a golden gobbled with wine inside.   
Gleaves spoke to the king, with a firm and threatening voice, “Give up your crown, and we will show the mercy to you, you wouldn’t grant us and your soldiers.”  
With a wave of his hand, he ordered Berg, the mountain of a man forward. His earth-shaking march towards the king, was more threatening than any words ever could be. In his heavy, full, thick metal armor made him seem invincible. The king who had held his sword in front of him, let it fall to the ground, when the giant reached his enormous armored hand towards him, waiting for him to let go of his crown.   
With shaking hands, the king gave Berg the crown and the colossus of a man marched back. In the meantime, other soldiers had brought in a colon, threw wood under it, lightening it with the fires around them. Just before Berg had the opportunity to throw the crown into the colon to melt it, a small girl, who has seen everything transpire took a red glowing fire-hook, ran towards berg, dodging multiple soldiers, ramming it into his left knee bend, where his armor was visible weaker than at other points, turned around and ran towards her king, bowing down, presenting him his crown.   
With a disgusted look on his face he grinned, hearing the colossus groveling in pain. Gleaves smashed the flat side of his axe against the armored chest of Berg, holding him back, from tearing the whole tower down.   
“This is fate!”, the king hysterically screamed, as he took back his crown. “Brought back to me by a slave! Unworthy to even touch it!”  
The girl looked up; fear written in her face.   
“Now, girl! You have expended your use! Now go die for me!”, he laughed manically.   
She stood up, stumbling back, falling, shaking her head, her eyes screaming for help.  
“You deny a direct order of your king?! That is punishable by death!”, he raised his sword, ready to strike.  
Gleaves raised his axe, ready to throw, when a cry of shock and fear, a red spike of ice pierced through the king’s skull.   
“She’s a gifted.”, Gleaves noted.   
The girl was cowering on the ground, convulsively crying. Blanc fear coming out, taking over her body.   
Berg slowly neared towards the crying girl on the ground. When he was next to her, he lifted her up, laid a hand on her shoulder, and said, with the sweetest voice, Gleaves had ever heard out of the man’s mouth, “I honor your strength, your courage and your skills, gifted, you are welcome to join us. With us, you are save.”  
“You are not--?”, with ice tears in her eyes, the girl got interrupted.  
“We are from the Union, we all have gifts, be it strength, courage, skill or the gift, you and me have.”, Gleaves stepped in. He picked the king’s sword up, “This is no good…”, he swept carefully over the edge, liquid metal fell of, on the ground. When he was finished, he held a new sword in his hands. “This is my gift. I can form metal. An earth-based ability.”, he waited for the girl to realize, she was with her people. People, she could depend on. “And this—” he held the sword by the blade, the handle pointing at the girl. “Is for you, if you want to join us, take it.”  
The girl stood up, swept tears out of her eyes. “I’m not worth it.”, she declined, being sorry she said it.  
“You have proven your worth to us, gifted, now give us your name, we can remember you by.”, Berg, the giant said, while still kneeling, leading her hand towards the handle.  
She looked up. Seeing Gleaves and Berg looking proudly at her. “My name is Liss.”, she said, grasping after the courage, she had felt before, closing her hand around the handle. Feeling herself born anew.  
“Good, Liss, from now on, you shall be known as Iceborn, Lissandra, Gifted, member of The Union, King-slayer, and protector of the crown.”  
A wide smile covered Liss’ face.

  
Vaylin Fyéry   
Born to: Mr., Spanish, and Mss., Portuguese, Fyéry, He: a rich salesman, has shady background, was deeply involved with the fall of Spain, has strong relations to the upper military and cleric leagues of the union, his parents were heroes to the gifted, while themselves were not gifted.  
She was a gifted, who was fleeing from prosecution of the Salvators, got into service for the royal family, had a smaller part to play in the fall of Spain  
Relation to Vaylin: bad, Vaylin feels, like they betrayed their country, not like they saved lives. Additionally, they gave Vaylin away, as leverage for the Union, to ensure the loyalty of them. Vaylin herself feels betrayed and wants nothing to do with them. More dislike to her father, because he was the perpetrator of the usurp.  
Was born in: Zaragoza, Spain  
Stature: 1.81m strong, healthy, strong, moderately ripped, broad shoulders, overpowering is her main tactic, rectangle, stamina very good.   
Age: 23  
Hair: dark chestnut-red, Long, healthy, smooth, likes to wear it in a high ponytail   
Loyalty: The Union  
Religion: The Faith  
Gift:   
\- strong connection to heat, fire and lightning  
\- favorite attack: a fireball, that explodes on impact  
\- hates her ability of heat aura, naturally exhausts all in reach.  
\- fiery barrage, hits enemies with fire  
\- firewall, not of much defensive use, only effective against other fire and water, most ice will go through, turning into water, arrows and so on will turn into fire arrows, so not really helping  
\- chain lightning, fires bolts of lightning into a target, the lightning-bolts arch to adjacent enemies, requires much power, only deadly in the middle of the day, or many fires around, that can be absorbed for power. Metallic armor is especially weak and detrimental to the health of the wearer, except, he is in full armor, while being grounded  
\- stunning power, a punch, hit or strike, can be enhanced with a small fiery explosion and results in unconsciousness, disorientation, swindle and so on  
\- shocking blade, a constant current of lightning flows through her sword, results in shocks and, if not isolated, holding onto your sword is difficult, of got into contact, again, metallic armor is especially weak for this  
Other trades:  
\- Gifted fighter  
\- quick learner  
\- Loyal  
\- open minded  
\- knowledge of history, religion (the Faith), places and people  
\- reading and writing  
\- learner in tactics, leading, using her head in difficult situations  
Background:  
After Spain had fallen and her father helped to install the government of the Union, Vaylin was traded as leverage. As an insurance, that her father wouldn’t betray the Union as well. -I love betrayal, I hate betrayer-, since she was a powerful gifted, Vaylin was taken into the school of gifted. But couldn’t join the other gifted, as she was a delicate tool for the Union. Even though, she had excellent results in every test, she was kept in school for four years longer, than usual. Only after Vaylin was able to sneak a letter to her father, she was set free, which made her question her father’s position, background and the Union’s structure, if a rich person can overrule other authority figures this easily. Which resulted into trust issues with rich people and authority figures. Additionally, twelfth years in school, in separation, only military, cleric and other teachers, her social abilities are underdeveloped.   
At first might seem repellant, and arrogant, but opens up quickly, if shown a bit of interest.  
  
  



End file.
